why does playing dead work to avoid getting attacked by brown bears? Wouldn’t they want to eat you more if they thought you were dead and thus couldn’t fight back?

Question

why does playing dead work to avoid getting attacked by brown bears? Wouldn’t they want to eat you more if they thought you were dead and thus couldn’t fight back?

In: Biology

Answer 1

I grew up next to a guy who had been mauled 3 times by grizzlies. He said the best thing is to avoid a confrontation. They will keep mauling you after you play dead, they can run downhill, and there are two kinds of trees to a grizzly, big enough to climb or small enough to push over. The scars on that guy’s back were enough to convince me he knew these things first hand.